Specialist conference
Details
Stephan Harbarth, President of the Federal Constitutional Court, who traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as part of the “J20 Summit”, a conference of the leading judicial representatives of the G20 countries, which began on Sunday, took advantage of his stay to give a lecture at the Getulio Vargas Foundation University on May 10. In a lecture at the Getulio Vargas Foundation University on May 10, Prof. Harbarth not only presented the Federal Constitutional Court's 2021 decision on climate protection to around 130 students, but also discussed the subject with Supreme Court judges Luís Felipe Salomão and Gilmar Mendes.
Prof. Harbarth began his presentation by emphasizing that current climate developments, such as heat waves, droughts, forest and wildfires, heavy rainfall, floods and hurricanes, which can be seen and felt all over the world, are due to anthropogenic climate change, i.e. climate change caused by humans. Prof. Harbarth then discussed the constitutional structure that forms the basis of the Federal Constitutional Court's decision. The central thesis of his speech was the interaction between the protection rights of individual citizens, the positive obligation to protect, which requires the state not only to refrain but also to act, and the state's responsibility for future generations. He also addressed the obligation not only to protect the right to protection through various measures, but also to contribute to the protection itself, as well as the awareness that no state can prevent global warming alone, since the emissions of all states contribute equally to climate change, which results in the importance of internationally coordinated action.
The subsequent explanation of the BVerfG's climate protection decision was followed by a discussion between Justices Harbarth, Salomão and Mendes, which illustrated the perspectives of Germany and Brazil and demonstrated the great relevance of an exchange between international lawyers on this topic.
The lecture took place at a time when the world is looking to southern Brazil, where severe and persistent storms have led to serious flooding in the metropolis of Porto Alegre and much of the Rio Grande do Sul region. This once again highlights the most pertinent effects of man-made climate change.
